Wadhams in 2004 helped Republican John Thune defeat Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle – the first time in 52 years a sitting Democratic party leader had lost in an election.

The Reno Gazette-Journal reported on Wadhams’ fundraising speech:

“This race is much more important because while Daschle was obstructing an agenda, Harry Reid is implementing and pushing an agenda and it’s very dangerous and very insidious for the future of our country,” Wadhams said.

Andrew Romanoff's campaign posted what it called a photo montage across the top of his Senate website. The woman to his left was inserted into the photo. (From www.andrewromanoff.com)

A photo montage on Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff’s website was manipulated to make it appear as though an African-American supporter was standing directly at his side in the shot.

Andrew Romanoff greets supporters at his campaign kickoff in Wash Park in September. The campaign used this photo and other crowd shots for a photo montage spread across the top of Romanoff's Web site. (Photos from www.AndrewRomanoff.com)

This picture of Andrea Mosby, who attended the event, was inserted into the crowd photo.

The woman, former Denver School Board candidate Andrea Mosby, was at his campaign kickoff at Washington Park last September. But she was not standing directly next to Romanoff when that particular picture was taken.

Mosby said Wednesday she has no problem with what happened, and Romanoff’s campaign said it did nothing wrong in putting together a series of photos that appear to be one.

“We’re not putting in someone who wasn’t at the rally. We do nothing that suggests the rally is bigger than it was,” said campaign spokesman Roy Teicher.

“The practice of using Photoshop is absolutely accepted under these circumstances.”

He said the issue was a nonstory and blamed Romanoff’s Democratic primary rival, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet.

“Who’s paying this close attention?” Teicher wanted to know.

The top of Romanoff’s home page contains what looks to the casual observer to be a single photograph, but it actually is what Teicher called a “photo collage.” At least three photos are merged in the shot — Romanoff with a group of people on one side; a crowd shot on his other side and the picture of Mosby inserted next to Romanoff.

Other minorities were in the original shot with Romanoff before Mosby’s image was inserted.

Mosby’s picture was taken at the event and can be found on Romanoff’s Web site by looking at individual snapshots from the Wash Park rally. That’s the photo that was inserted into the group shot. Teicher said Mosby was standing near Romanoff when her picture was taken.

Mosby said she had never noticed the doctored shot before it was pointed out to her today.

“It’s quite all right with me. I was there. I talked to Andrew. I am definitely supporting him,” she said.

“We’re in America. How do you stop people from using your photo?”

Political consultant Katy Atkinson, a Denver Republican who handles non partisan ballot measures, said the Web photo was probably handled by a “Web geek .. but it was not a smart thing to do.”

“It creates controversy where you don’t need controversy,” she said.

The last time doctored photos were an issue in a campaign was in 2006 when Republican gubernatorial candidate Marc Holtzman sent out a brochure with pictures of him and presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. The photos had been altered to make Holtzman appear taller.

His campaign said at the time that unaltered photos were sent to the design company, and must have been changed by the staff there.

Holtzman, reached in London, laughed when he heard the issue of a doctored campaign photo had come up again.

The steering committee assembled to usher recommendations for the redevelopment of Denver’s biggest tourist lure will announce tomorrow that the most radical of the three options originally pitched has been dropped.

The so-called Option 3 that would have diverted one of the pair of mall shuttles over to 15th Street has been deemed unworkable, John Desmond, a co-chair of the steering committee told me this afternoon.

“The steering committee has eliminated Option 3,” Desmond, a top official at the Downtown Denver Partnership, said. “We’re focusing our attention on options one and two and some analysis of alternatives that have been brought up.”

You can learn more tomorrow at a public meeting concerning the once-in-a-generation mall redo at the Warwick Hotel from 7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m.

Another co-chair, Bob Kochevar of Denver Public Works, offers several reasons why.

With the 15th Street option “you’ve added a number of equations and a number of problems” to the mix.

Republican gubernatorial candidates Scott McInnis and Dan Maes are bridling today at a Denver Post report that calls them out for not releasing their tax returns.

In phone interviews I’ve been told that the candidates may very well just might make them available at some point in time or another. Perhaps.

They said so because our editorial board is weighing-in with a request that they release the returns in an editorial tomorrow.

Look, we get it that releasing the returns is risky and uncomfortable. I’m glad that I’m not running for office and that I don’t have to be transparent and accountable on the kind of level that we demand of our elected officials.

But these guys are running for governor and candidates for governor ought to expect to release this kind of information.

I’m surprised, really, that McInnis didn’t see this coming and be ready for it.

Now he’s given Hickenlooper – who is providing his returns for the last 10 years by next Friday – yet another chance to look more gubernatorial. (Again, I just love that word: Gubernatorial.)

Union building trade workers attend a rally to call for the release of federal stimulus funds to save local jobs, on the steps of City Hall in Los Angeles on April 14, 2010. (Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)

Andrew Romanoff called for tougher job, trade and currency protections for U.S. manufacturers in a visit to Colorado Springs Wednesday.

The Democratic U.S. Senate candidate said in an accompanying statement the federal government should push China to let its yuan currency exchange rate float up instead of keeping it artificially low to support Chinese product exports to the U.S. “The U.S. government should impose countervailing duties to level the playing field,” Romanoff said. Financial experts have said allowing the yuan to rise would help improve the ballooning U.S. trade deficit with China.

Joey Bunch has been a reporter for 28 years, including the last 12 at The Denver Post. For various newspapers he has covered the environment, water issues, politics, civil rights, sports and the casino industry.